Archinect - News

Editor's Picks #307

2013-03-19T17:39:00-04:00

Reflecting on the site of Farnsworth House, an obvious floodplain, toasteroven wondered "who pushed siting the building where it is - the client or mies?". To which snooker-doodle-dandy replied "don't believe Mies would ever let a Client tell him what to do. In fact if they tried, he would most likely stuff out his Cuban cigar on their forehead"

News
As of March 11, 2013 Farnsworth House is fully surrounded by river water, but neither the lower deck nor the upper deck had yet been breached.

Paul Petrunia noted that last time it happened "They even blogged the cleanup: http://archinect.com/news/article/80993/farnsworth-clean-up".

Reflecting on the site of Farnsworth House, an obvious floodplain, toasteroven wondered "who pushed siting the building where it is - the client or mies?". To which snooker-doodle-dandy replied "don't believe Mies would ever let a Client tell him what to do. In fact if they tried, he would most likely stuff out his Cuban cigar on their forehead"

For her part Donna Sink expressed the opinion "I think evilplatypus - whose presence here I miss - once noted that the 100 year flood level that Mies used to site the building has been radically changed due to the massive suburban development that has happened upstream in the intervening 60 years. I think the house should be moved".

AIA ...

Building boom: the London developments revamping the skyline

2013-02-25T14:36:00-05:00

The London skyline has traditionally been a slow-moving beast. While cities in Asia or the United States throw up dozens of new buildings virtually overnight, the capital’s horizon evolves at a more sedate pace. That’s all changing. A clutch of thrilling new buildings is revamping the skyline and helping to fulfil the desperate demand for housing. It’s taking place all over the city, but particularly in a southern stretch between London Bridge and Lambeth.

Shard builders Mace to project manage Saudi Arabia's Kingdom tower

2013-02-22T12:53:00-05:00

The British company that built the Shard skyscraper in London will manage the construction of the Kingdom tower in Saudi Arabia, which will be the world's tallest building when completed. The Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal unveiled the plans, by American firm Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, 18 months ago as part of a new £13bn Kingdom City development on the Red Sea coast to the north of Jeddah.

Toronto Leading Western World in Tall Building Construction

2013-01-07T23:48:00-05:00

Canada’s biggest city is getting even bigger, with a pace-setting number of skyscrapers set to join the city skyline. According to a Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) report dubbed “Canada Rising,” Toronto is leading the western world in terms of new buildings 150 metres or taller currently under construction.

Double-Deck Elevators Rise as Tallest Towers Test Limits

2013-01-03T17:24:00-05:00

The United Technologies Corp. unit has to go beyond the braking mechanism Elisha Otis demonstrated with a rope and saber at the 1854 World’s Fair. It’s working on systems able to stop 16 metric tons (35,274 pounds) of elevator and cable falling from the top of a kilometer-tall tower -- equal to a half-full tractor trailer driven off a cliff.

150 stories - but no sewer connection

2012-12-30T11:09:00-05:00

'[R]emember that a place like Dubai really emerged in the last 50 years. It was a sleepy, you know, Bedouin town half a century ago. And what you do is when you bring in the world’s, you know, most sophisticated architects and engineers, you can literally build anything, including a building of 140 or 150 stories. But designing a municipal network of sewage treatment is in some ways more complex. - KATE ASCHER

Terry Gross recently interviewed Kate Ascher about her skyscraper book, and ended up discussing the common lack of sewage connections in Dubai - including the Burj Khalifa. So they end up using trucks to cart the sewage to the central treatment plant, where they often end up queuing for 24-hours or more before they can be emptied.

Gizmodo calculated:

'The Burj Khalifa has 163 habitable floors. It's designed to hold 35,000 people at any given time. Now, humans produce 100 to 250 grams (3 to 8 ounces) of feces per day. Let's say 200 in this case, since these people are well fed. That's 7,000,000 grams per day. Seven tonnes of poop per day. Now, add human-produced liquids (pee, bathing, cleaning their teeth...) and the water to push the poop down its miles of sewage pipes. I think a very conservative total would be 15 tonnes of sewage per day.

That's a lot of poop.'

Sky Gardens Add Drama to $750 Million Park Avenue Tower

2012-12-26T20:15:00-05:00

The Park Avenue tower rises from a monumental covered plaza to two setbacks, where the 42-foot-high garden levels expose those massive, dramatic building supports. The top two floors of the tower, tentatively planned to rise 49 stories, form a glass- roofed garden. Elevator shafts morph into glowing blades that slice the sky above the roof.

Isolated Tombstone Stands Among Chinese Skyscrapers

2012-12-12T14:01:00-05:00

In a bizarre dispute, a skyscraper has been built around a tombstone in the city of Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province in China. Building developers bought a cemetery with an eye to building a series of skyscrapers on the land. Prior to construction, locals were paid to relocate the graves, yet one family refused the proposed terms, forcing developers to build around the landmass.

Russia's Mercury City tower cuts the Shard down to size

2012-11-17T13:25:00-05:00

A towering beacon of pink mirrored glass has overtaken the Shard to become the tallest building in Europe. Moscow's Mercury City tower, which topped out on Thursday, now rises to 339m, making it 29m taller than London's own crystalline pyramid. The building joins a motley cluster in the emerging Moscow International Business Centre, a $12bn complex initiated by former mayor Yuri Luzhkov as a playground for rival oligarchs to demonstrate their penile might.

Tall-Building Experts: No Easy Path to Truly Sustainable Supertowers

2012-10-04T19:02:00-04:00

Johnson, a design partner in the New York City office of architect NBBJ, estimates that by 2060-70, skyscrapers will not only produce more energy than they use, they will produce food.

Is There a Limit to How Tall Buildings Can Get?

2012-08-16T15:37:00-04:00

For a Middle East-based client he's not allowed to identify, Johnson worked on a project back in the late 2000s designing a building that would have been a mile-and-a-half tall, with 500 stories. Somewhat of a theoretical practice, the design team identified between 8 and 10 inventions that would have had to take place to build a building that tall. Not innovations, Johnson says, but inventions, as in completely new technologies and materials.

Renzo Piano's The Shard in London, Europe's tallest building, is officially open

2012-07-05T18:01:00-04:00

The tower, designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano, will contain offices, exclusive residences, a luxury hotel, restaurants and a viewing gallery across 72 floors which can be occupied. There are a further 15 levels which make up the 'spire' - six of which have the potential to be used, with another nine exposed to the elements. The 1,016ft skyscraper was inaugurated by the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Qatar, Hamad Bin Jassim Bin Jabr Al-Thani, and The Duke of York.

Sky City: World’s tallest building, to be built in 90 days

2012-06-15T18:48:00-04:00

It took Dubai more than five years to build the 828-meter Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building (for the moment, anyway). But Chinese architects and engineers reckon they need a mere 90 days to leave the Emiratis in the dust. At least, that's what they've claimed.

BSB is renowned for its eye-opening construction efficiency. Its portfolio includes assembling a 15-story building in six days in June 2010, and erecting a 30-story hotel in 360 hours in December 2011.

The key to achieving such stunning speed is an innovative construction technique developed by BSB.

Most of the company’s buildings are pieced together with prefabricated components from its factory. In this case, 95 percent of Sky City will be completed before breaking ground.

BSB explained to Xinhua that its goal of building Sky City is not to erect a new landmark in China, but to develop and put into use a “medium-cost, super-saving utility building and to promote a futuristic urban lifestyle.”

Can wooden skyscrapers transform concrete jungles?

2012-03-18T23:48:00-04:00

Swapping cement and steel for timber is the vision of a number of environmentally-minded architects who are planning high-rise buildings across the world. Architect Michael Green has plans for a 30-story wooden skyscraper in Vancouver, while plans are afoot in Norway and Austria for 17- and 20-story buildings that use wood as the main building material, eschewing steel and concrete.

Future looking up for tall buildings?

2012-01-10T14:19:00-05:00

“There needs to be intensification,” argues architect Bruce Kuwabara. “What we have to think about are ways to create a vertical urban life that’s livable. It isn’t just about the view. It has to be about how buildings work at the base and how they contribute to the public realm.”

Editor's Picks #228

2011-09-11T13:58:47-04:00

News
In the lead up to 9/11 Christopher Hawthorne wrote "The tall tower is architecture's most famous building type and also the one most clearly at odds with the profession's roots. Fundamentally, architecture is shelter, a concession that we're afraid to face the elements without protection. A skyscraper is vertical hubris." In response to which Donna Sink queried "So is CCTV a greater or lesser example of hubris than the next-temporarily-tallest tower?"

The New York Observer, observed that "Thanks to some lightning rods, 1 World Trade Center will be free from some of the silly symbolic weight given to it by Danny Libeskind." However, TheMasterBuilder disagreed "I like this design, and I'm glad they went with this instead of exactly what Libeskind had proposed. The Chamfered edges, the square profiles the large antenna all recall the original WTC buildings. ..Overall, I'd say, it's not ideal, and its not what people were hoping for, but neither was the first WTC, and I'm sure...

Post 9/11, symbolism of skyscrapers unchanged

2011-09-04T17:41:24-04:00

Any skyscraper is a contradiction. The tall tower is architecture's most famous building type and also the one most clearly at odds with the profession's roots. Fundamentally, architecture is shelter, a concession that we're afraid to face the elements without protection. A skyscraper is vertical hubris.

Previously: AS+GG Designs Kingdom Tower, to Be the World’s Tallest Building

London Skyscraper Boom Ends as City Goes ‘From Vanity to Sanity’

2011-04-19T23:19:22-04:00

“The age of bling is over,” said Shuttleworth, who led the team at Norman Foster’s firm that designed the seven-year- old tower in the City of London financial district. He said it would never get off the ground today. “Money now drives everything, so if you can build something for half the price, you will,” he said.